Operation :: Goddess

From home, follow Monterey up to Ray, then back down to McClintock, then home = 1.4 miles.

Home, down Monterey, across McClintock, down to Desert Breeze, around the park, and back home = 2.5 miles.

Home, down Harrison to Federal, Federal to Metro, Metro across Country Club to Galveston, to Tercera, to Monterey, to home = 2 miles.

Home, down Harrison to Monterey, Monterey to Ray, to Federal, to Harrison, and back home = 1.5 miles.

Home, Harrison to Country Club to Chandler to McClintock to Monterey to home = 2 miles.

Home, Harrison to Country Club to Chandler to McClintock to Ray to Monterey to home = 3 miles.

Home, Harrison to Monterey to Ray to Price to Chandler to Country Club to Harrison to home = 3 miles.

Around the AcronymCo campus (following the road, not the walking paths) = 1.4 miles.

Around the AcronymCo campus, from 5 bldg. to Chandler to Ray to Galveston to 5 bldg. = 1.7 miles.

From home to AcronymCo and back (via Desert Breeze) = 4.5 miles.

From home to AcronymCo and back (via McClintock and Chandler) = 5 miles.

Posted by Laura at 5:46 PM | Permalink | Comments

Tomorrow is the first day I will be getting up an hour earlier than has been usual, in order to work out before work. Cardio, specifically - I don't think I should be trusted with weights when I'm 3/4 asleep.

I'm still tracking my nutrition and exercise on Spark (just started up again at the beginning of the year, after a two-month absence), but I'm nowhere near as obsessed about playing in every little corner of the website than I was a few months ago.

1000 calories is not a lot to eat in a day, but I'm going to try to stick to that limit Monday through Friday (easier to maintain in the midst of the routine of the weekly grind), and lighten up on the stricture but still stay reasonably well-behaved on the weekends.

Cardio (at least a half-hour) and weights (also at least a half-hour) on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Saturdays. Cardio (at least an hour) and abs (as many reps as I can stand) on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. Fridays are my day off, dammit. If I can stick to this schedule, I'll deserve the day off.

Thirty pounds to lose by the end of July. That's a reasonable goal, I should think.

Labels: goals

Posted by Laura at 7:06 PM | Permalink | Comments

Currently posting health/fitness/diet stuff on my Spark Blog.

Labels: spark

Posted by Laura at 10:37 AM | Permalink | Comments

Breakfast: Two slices of oat bran toast with peanut butter, green/black fusion tea with honey.

Lunch: Four slices turkey breast deli meat, 1 cup cottage cheese, celery and carrots with reduced fat ranch dressing.

Dinner: Half of a french dip, french fries, a beer, and two hot wings at Teakwoods

Water: (goal = 100oz) 17 + nil. I've really got to do better than this.

Exercise: Calvin and I made like monkeys. That counts.

Energy Level: Up!

Mood: Positively giddy (no sarcasm, even), which just can't be right.

Labels: daily

Posted by Laura at 8:37 AM | Permalink | Comments

Breakfast: Two hard boiled eggs, hot tea, Fuze Slenderize drink.

Lunch: Arby's chicken salad wrap, the equivalent of one small curly fries, a few sips of soda.

Dinner: Two ears of corn on the cob with margerine.

Water: (goal = 100oz) Minimal.

Exercise: Feh

Energy Level: Calvin had to talk me into going to work this morning, but once there I felt okay. Not okay enough to work out tonight, though!

Mood: Bluesy. Frustrated. Tummy feels ookey.

Labels: daily

Posted by Laura at 4:39 PM | Permalink | Comments

Reminding myself, all in one post instead of dispersed among several entries:

Avoid:

Eggplant
Milk, Cow's
Quinoa
Sesame
Sunflower
Wheat
Yeast, Baker's
Yeast, Brewer's

Do:

Work out 3x/week, evenings (Tuesday, Thursday, Sunday):
5 minutes warm-up
30 minutes full body weight training
30-45 minutes cardio, heart rate 130-150 bpm
Cardio follows lifting

Work out 2x/week, mornings (Monday and Saturday):
30-45 minutes cardio, heart rate 130-150 bpm

Consume:

Calories = 1500 daily, taken in four meals
Eat within 1 hour of waking, do not eat within two hours of going to bed. Do not eat fruit, pasta (out anyway), bread (out anyway), rice, or potatoes after 5:00 pm.

Drink plenty of water. Take a multivitamin, digestive enzymes, and fish oil daily.

Track calories, weight & measurements in FitDay.

Maybe I'll print this out and carry it around with me. It's like I forget if I don't have it all right in front of me.

Labels: goals

Posted by Laura at 2:46 PM | Permalink | Comments

Well, back from vacation and I only gained a pound or two. Back to tracking my daily intake since I want to lose about twenty pounds before the end of July - yeah, we'll see how well that works out. It's good to have goals, I guess.

It was VERY nice to take a complete hiatus from concern about the amount and type of food I was consuming, and the amount of exercise I was (or was not) getting. I felt very relaxed in Maine and had no qualms whatsoever having whatever I wanted for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and anything else in between. Even so, I think the types of foods - whole foods, seafood, fresh fruits and veggies, organic locally produced meats - were actually healthier for me than the variation of strict calorie reduction and "diet" foods I have been consuming.

My nutritionist wants me to follow "The Schwarzbein Principle", which aligns pretty well with how I was eating on vacation. Except in larger quantities, of course, with some bread and fried seafood thrown in. Why have one crab leg when you can have five? Pass the butter! Have another lobster roll with mayo! Popcorn shrimp? Pile 'em on!

The problem is that following this nutritional lifestyle is not as convenient as just fucking eating whatever the hell will fit within your caloric "budget" for the day. The Schwarzbein Principle is based on the consumption of foods low on the glycemic index - proteins, whole fruits and veggies, few if any grains or breads, absolutely no processed or fried foods. Which means that I have to put thought in ahead of time for what I'm going to consume, so that I can make sure it's prepared when I need it. Make my breakfast and lunch ready for the next day, the night before. Prepare a dish for myself at dinner that is different than what I prepared for everyone else to eat. Be hyper-conscious about going out to eat or grabbing fast food.

Really, there is just too much brain power wasted on trying to figure out what to eat, and when to eat it, and how much, and in combination with what (combine your proteins with carbs! eat good fats, avoid bad fats!). Having to focus this much on what I'm putting into my mouth is only making me feel guilty when I do eat, and generating an unhealthy obsession, fixation, and paranoia. I'm developing a complex just because I like a bagel with cream cheese for breakfast, when I should be having hard boiled eggs and steel cut oatmeal.

I want to be able to JUST EAT. Not analyze and weigh and assess and contemplate and do a fucking word problem every time I approach a meal ("If a slice of toast consumed at 8:00 a.m. is combined with a hard boiled egg, will Laura feel guilty enough to skip lunch at 12:00 p.m., and if so, will she cave in and visit the vending machine out of hungry desperation at 2:30 p.m.?").

I just want to eat. To stay alive, to be entertained, to enjoy myself, to be healthy. I want to use all this brain power my diet has been taking up for better and more interesting purposes.

Labels: goals, headspace, progress

Posted by Laura at 8:50 AM | Permalink | Comments

A lot of weight-obsessed people, of which I am apparently (and reluctantly) one, weigh themselves every day or even multiple times a day. I used to work out with this one chick who would weigh herself before and after our workouts. As if that hour and effort had made a difference in her overall weight.

I obsess in a different way. I am absolutely positively scale-phobic. It has to take a huge force of will for me to get on the scale under any circumstances. At home I very rarely get on it. I absolutely refuse to stand on it in front of Calvin - a fact that he teases me mercilessly about. He even stands on it first in a sort of, "See? It doesn't hurt!" At the doctor's office, I stare off into the distance rather than look at the scale results. And the funny thing is, the med assistants at our doc's are aware of this, and they just smile and note the weight in their chart and don't say it out loud.

I don't know when this scale phobia started - it didn't always used to be this way. I used to stand on the scale with ease, in front of people or alone, note the weight with either dismay or encouragement, and go on with my day. Now, I can't do it at all without something akin to a panic attack.

I think it's just that I don't want to know. If I'm "feeling skinny", I don't want to stand on the scale and have it say to me, "Oh, girlie, you were SO WRONG. You big fat pig." If I'm "feeling fat", I sure as HELL don't want to stand on the scale and have that confirmed, even if the possibility exists that the result could be better than I expected.

I just pay attention to how I'm feeling, how my clothes fit, and how I look in the mirror. I'd like to say that it's because I'm all strong woman hear me roar flaunt the societal standards and fuck numbers anyway. But really it's because I'm a big ol' chicken. And numbers do matter to me, even though I don't want them to.

So I do what any reasonable woman would do. I ignore them. Pretend they don't exist. Hope they melt away on their own without me babysitting them.

Yeah, right.

Labels: headspace

Posted by Laura at 1:09 PM | Permalink | Comments

I have suspected for a while that I suffer from hormone imbalance, specifically symptoms of perimenopause, which is really not uncommon for women in their 30's. Of these symptoms listed, I suffer from a startling number of them.

Fatigue
Cravings for sweets or carbohydrates
Weight gain
Hot flashes or night sweats
PMS
Feeling depressed or overwhelmed
Mood swings or irritability
Insomnia or restless sleep
Headaches
Loss of desire
Fuzzy thinking
Digestive issues
Stiffness or joint pain
Anxiety
Heart palpitations
Breast pain
Urinary dysfunction
Hair loss/dry skin
Vaginal dryness
Irregular periods
Fibroids

I am starting the recommended program with Women to Women, which happens to be the OB-GYN that I saw when I lived in Maine. I was very pleased to find them at the top of the Google search when I entered in "hormone imbalance". I think on a regular basis, when doing the girly necessary annual crap, that I wish I could still go to the W2W clinic in Yarmouth, Maine. They were fantastic. Next best thing is getting their support long-distance, via e-mail and phone support, which thus far has been excellent.

Here is information on their personal program, information on their supplements, and information on their recommended free profile.

Labels: W2W, wellness

Posted by Laura at 11:51 AM | Permalink | Comments

It seems that I may have lost a couple of pounds. I'm weighing myself again this Friday, but clothes are a bit less pinchy and I feel less bloated.

Let's hear it for the demise of the bloat!

I'm tracking religiously on Fit Day - my PC program, not the on-line version. I'm working on caloric intake - weekly averages, mind you. Not daily. Because one day I'll be around 750 calories, then the next it's all up at 1800.

Week of Feb. 19th - average of 1468 calories
Week of Feb. 25th - average of 1162 calories
Week of March 4th - average of 1489 calories
Week of March 11th (thus far) - average of 1373 calories

So! I think I'm doing pretty good, so far.

I'm staying fairly well on-target with the working out, as well. I got a nifty little heart rate monitor (this one), and I've been keeping my average heartrate "in zone" pretty well. It actually feels like I'm not working hard enough, but my nutritionist assures me that oxygen is an integral part of the process, so it's important to still be able to breathe during the workout. 130-150 BPM is my optimal rate, so I guess before I was doing more harm than good, exceeding that.

I've noticed my stamina increasing - I can go longer on the elliptical, heavier on the weights, and it's easier to stay in my target heart rate without feeling like my heart is going to beat its way through my chest.

I just wish I could see a more dramatic drop in pounds. Slow and steady is the way to go, yes, but I'd sure feel a hell of a lot more motivated if I could see a sudden drop of, oh, say five pounds in a week. I've been averaging around 1.5.

Sigh. I guess I'm too impatient.

Labels: progress

Posted by Laura at 11:57 AM | Permalink | Comments